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Dessert

Coffee Souffle

A light, airy coffee‑flavored soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, coffee, sugar, eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Coffee Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then remove from heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, gradually add the milk, then the coffee and sugar, cooking well while stirring continuously.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then stir in the yolks of three eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the whites of four eggs to a firm froth and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a soufflé dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 25 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, and the yolks enrich and set the custard structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a stable base that holds the soufflé up.
Butter
Forms the roux with the flour, adding richness and helping the base thicken smoothly.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the base, adding softness and richness to the custard.
Strong coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and liquid for the base.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and adds body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to a firm froth and folded gently. Stirring or deflating them loses the trapped air, so the soufflé will not rise properly in the oven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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